Polyphenylene ethers are a widely used class of thermoplastic engineering resins characterized by excellent hydrolytic stability, dimensional stability, toughness, heat resistance and electric properties. These polyphenylene ethers can be capped with functionalities as for example epoxy triazine, phosphate triazine or ortho ester triazine. These capped or functionalized polyphenylene ethers result in products having higher workability, solvent resistance and additional benefits. These capped polyphenylene ethers can be blended with modifying materials such as polyesters and polyamides to further improve characteristics of the resulting polymer alloys over state of the art polymer alloys or blends. PCT published application 87-850 describes blends of polyphenylene ether resins and polyesters and discloses that polyesters such as polyalkalene dicarboxylates (particularly polyalkylene terephthalates) can be added to polyphenylene ether resins in order to provide an improved material which is resistant to nonpolar solvents such as gasoline.
One problem in commercially providing such satisfactory blend compositions of polyphenylene ether with polyalkylene terephthalates is that the polyalkylene terephthalates undergo a degree of degradation during processing which is caused by the fact that the typical processing temperatures of polyphenylene ether polymers exceed the thermal decomposition temperatures for many polyalkylene terephthalate polymers. As a result, an unacceptably narrow processing temperature band for many alloys limits the utility of the alloys in many injection molding applications.
Therefore, a need exists for providing blends of polyphenylene ethers with other polymers such as polyalkylene dicarboxylates and other polyphenylene ether-containing alloys which can be worked at lower processing temperatures and injection molded at lower temperatures lower than state of the art compositions which employ polyphenylene ether polymers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,566 issued to Kenneth F. Miller et al. teaches the use of hydrogenated poly (alpha-olefin) fluids as mold release agents with aromatic carbonate polymers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,124 issued to Nelson teaches the use of hydrogenated polymers and oligomers of poly (alpha-olefin) as mold release agents for thermoplastic compositions. Neither of these references teach the use of hydrogenated poly (alpha-olefin) fluids to improve the workability and flowability of polymer alloy compositions comprised of capped or functionalized polyphenylene ether blends and alloys.